


Until the Music Stops

by yespolkadot_kitty



Series: Nightingale Verse [1]
Category: The Equalizer (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I have fallen into the Dave pit, MUSTACHELESS BASTARD, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25408834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: Men like Robert McCall and Dave York can't use normal hospitals.
Relationships: Dave York/Reader, Dave York/You
Series: Nightingale Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845097
Kudos: 32





	Until the Music Stops

A knock at the door makes you start, looking up from your work. That particular knock - three raps, then one, then two - means trouble.

_ Specifically, _ someone from McCall’s black ops team has been in trouble and now their problem is your problem.

Over the last three years you have occupied a morally grey area. You have fixed broken bones, stitched up knife wounds, removed bullets. Once, you amputated a leg when it could not be saved. You rarely see these men’s faces, and you prefer it that way.

Except one.

When you open the door, it’s him, leaning heavily on McCall, a black beanie pulled over his thick, caramel-brown hair, his eyes closed. His shirt is soaked with blood. His or someone else’s, you don’t know.

“How bad?” you ask when McCall half-drags him in.

“Pretty bad.”

You help McCall heft the other man on to the wheeled hospital bed. You keep it clear for times like this, when you know they’re out on an assignation and a wounded man - or several men - could arrive at any time.

You’ve only treated a woman twice. 

You pull off the beanie, revealing his shock of hair. You know that it’s thick, soft to the touch.

His eyes remain closed as you hook up an IV with steady hands. You’ve learned the hard way not to take this job personally, not to let your heart get involved.

Although with this man, you’ve failed.

“What can I do?” McCall asks, his mouth drawn into a grim line.

You wave a hand. “In the kindest way possible, leave. I work better without distractions.”

He nods. “Thank you. Payment tomorrow, the usual way.”

You make some sound of assent, and hear the door click shut as McCall leaves. You wonder idly if he has someone to clean the blood off his car seats.

The man on the table - McCall introduced him as York, but after a few meetings you’d learned that his first name was  _ David _ \- groaned in a husky-edged voice, one hand curling into a fist on the table. You shouldn’t, but you slide your fingers over the back of his hand.

“Florence,” he mutters, in the voice that makes you want to sin.

It’s his nickname for you. You laughed the first time he called it out, from the bed in the back room, a bandage over one eye, his lips curved in a half-smile. Now when he says it in that timbre, it makes your heart skip a beat and heat rush down your body.

“I’m here.” You squeeze his hand as you hook up the IV into a vein. He’s out within seconds.

Easier this way. Easier to pretend he’s just anyone as you work.

You part his black leather jacket and then cut his t-shirt open, lay the fabric either side of his body.  _ So _ much blood, maybe too much. He looks pale and you mentally review your supplies and if you have the right blood type for David York.

The knife wound is long, but looks shallow. You slide on gloves, check your sterilised equipment, and go about your business. His breathing hitches now and again, and you see his eyes moving under his closed lids. You hope his dream is pleasant.

A half hour later the wound is cleaned and stitched, and you wheel the bed through to your small recovery room. The window is one-way, and anyone looking inside will simply see the illusion of a closed office-type blind. The hour is late, so you see hardly any cars passing.

“Who have you killed today, David?” you ask softly, allowing yourself to stroke the hair back from his forehead. 

His skin is clammy to the touch.

You head to the fridge and change his IV for that of a bag of A Negative, watch it slowly ink into his system.

Then you pull up a chair, drop into it with a book, and you wait.

****

“Florence.”

You jerk out of your doze to see York sitting up, looking at you with those tired eyes, the colour of your favourite imported chocolate.

Against your will, you smile. “How are you feeling?”

He groans, rubs a hand over his face. His skin has more colour now; the bandage you slapped over the IV line looks very white against the slight olivey topography of his hand. “Like I was stabbed to death.”

“You nearly were.”

Your gazes meet for a moment. 

“Are you ever going to tell me your name, Doc?” York asks, and there’s a pleading note in his voice that tugs on your heart.

You set the book down. “It’s better if I don’t.”

He seems to consider that for a moment, his face pensive. You don’t know if he’s classically  _ handsome, _ but his face is striking, memorable, a face you’ve dreamed about many times. “I need something to call you.”

You stand up, gathering what you need to take his temperature and blood pressure. “When?”

You watch a muscle in his jaw tick as he looks away, and then meets your gaze again, those big, brown eyes deep and soulful and somehow saying a thousand things your heart wants to hear. “When I fuck you into oblivion in my fantasies.”

Your hand falters as you strap the blood pressure cuff on. “David,” you say, warning thick in your tone.

He closes his eyes. “ _ That’s _ how you say my name. Just before you come.”

His blood pressure reads normal. You can’t say the same for yours.

“We can’t go down this road.”

The muscle in his jaw again. Fuck, you could lick him right there; taste the salt on his skin, learn the texture of his mouth under yours. 

You take a thermometer from your lab coat pocket, turn it on, stick it in his ear until it beeps. Perfect temperature. 

“Why not?” he asks, as if he’s asking what you want to order for dinner. “I might not survive the next time.”

And there it is, in a nutshell. Why you’re afraid to touch him, taste him, give anything of yourself to him. 

You shove the thermometer back in your pocket. “You’ll be fine. Maybe dodge next time.”

His lips curve but the smile doesn’t reach those honey-bourbon eyes. “Maybe I’d rather take my chances,” he murmurs, and you both know he isn’t talking about knives.

You shake your head sadly, although every fibre of your being  _ yearns _ for him. To skate your fingers over his chest, feel the beat of his heart. To lick into his mouth, taste him on your tongue for days afterwards. To take every inch of him inside you, to let the cavern of your body learn his ridges and valleys.

“Sleep,” you say. “I’ll be back when the bag’s empty.”

******

York is sleeping when you return to change the bag, and you oscillate between relief and disappointment. You toss the bag and remove the IV, pressing a cotton wool pad to his hand to stem the small amount of blood.

As you lean over him to inspect the tiny stitches you only put in hours ago, his other hand tangles in your hair. “Florence.”

“Thought you were asleep.” You should move your head, but his hand feels so nice in your hair. Just a few more moments.

York slides his palm down to cup your cheek. “Was. I always dream of you, Doc. No lie.”

You stand back with regret. “That’s because I only give you the finest drugs.”

He huffs out a laugh. “We both know that’s not why.” He catches your hand, tangles your fingers. “How much longer do you want to do this dance?”

You stiffen. “Until the music runs out.”

York tugs you closer. “Please,” he mutters, that voice of velvet and gravel pitched low, intimate. “I don’t know how many songs I have left.”

You wonder how old he is. Mid forties? He can’t keep doing this - killing under the radar - for much longer.

Do you really want him to turn up at your door minutes from death, again, and lose him without ever tasting all the flavours he has to offer?

“You’ve got stitches,” you say, but you’re stalling and York knows it.

“Then I guess you’ll have to be careful,” he whispers, his voice breaking a little on the last word, and he brings your hand to his lips and brushes his mouth over your knuckles, and you’re lost. You know it and he knows it.

You climb up on the bed and straddle him, your knees on either side of his hips, then brace your forearms either side of his head. His eyes drift closed as you lower your head and brush your mouth over his, once, then twice, and he opens for you. You lick into him, and he tastes faintly of coffee and mint, the scent of gunpowder and leather heavy in your nostrils. You murmur his name and his hands come up to bracket your hips, fingers digging in, and you’ve never wanted to be branded so much by a man.

“Florence,” he breathes against your lips. “Always knew you’d taste sweet.”

Your heart thuds, heat spearing down your body. His shirt is still parted where you cut the fabric and you let your mouth wander, sucking at his pulse point and then licking the hollow of his throat. York growls low and soft, the noise speaking directly to your hormone-addled brain. You taste him at your leisure, licking his skin just to taste his flavour on your tongue. His heartbeat thumps under your ear as you give attention to one and then the other of his nipples; he shifts underneath you, and you feel the impatient line of his cock against your thigh. 

“Careful,” you whisper against his chest. “You can’t move. Doctor’s orders.”

His cock jerks and you both laugh; his is more of a rasp.

“You’d better make sure I stay in line,” he grates out, sliding a hand over your hip, fiddling with the waist of your skirt, then sliding the hem up.

“I said, no moving.”

His hand stills, then slips down to your underwear, his finger tracing circles over the wet fabric. “Not even this?”

Your muscles start fluttering. “Perhaps some light physical activity is what you need.”

He continues his ministrations, eyes hot on yours, as you desperately unzip his jeans and slip him out of his boxers. He’s long and thick, the head of him wet, and your mouth fills with saliva and the need to taste him, but if he stops doing that thing with his fingers, you think you might die.

“You feel like Heaven,” York breathes as he slides two fingers inside you, stretching you. “You’re the dream I don’t deserve, Florence.” He works his digits in and out of you, his gaze steady on yours. “Tell me to go to Hell. You could send me there, right now, if you wanted to.”

“Never,” you whisper against his mouth as you kiss him again, keeping one hand around him, stroking up and down his length until he’s almost incoherent, fighting to keep his hips from bucking into your fist.

You come in a hot rush of blinding pleasure as York curls his fingers inside you, and you swat his hand away to push your underwear to the side, holding his gaze as you position him and sink slowly, slowly down until you envelop him completely. His breath comes out in a rush as you set a slow, tender pace, clenching your muscles as hard as you can around him to feel every raised ridge and shallow valley.

“David,” you purr, bracing your hands on his shoulders to avoid touching the area near his stitches.

He grips your thighs. His fingers might leave a mark.

Good.

You move up and down, but in the next heartbeat, he’s lifted a leg, changing the angle, going deeper. It makes you gasp out loud, the wonderful pressure of him filling you. His breath stutters out as he meets your gaze again, and damn if him biting his lip isn’t the sexiest thing you’ve seen in a long, long time.

“ _ Florence, _ ” he grates out. “Can’t… need…” 

The raw edge to his voice tips you over the edge and the orgasm washes over you, a halo of bliss circling inside you, and you slide off him, quickly gripping him in your hand and administering the rough, fast strokes he needs to finish. With a strangled cry he comes over his stomach, cock jerking in your fingers, pleasure stark on his face. You lean down to kiss him as his orgasm subsides, and you taste tears on your lips. Whether they’re yours or his, it’s not clear. It doesn’t matter, anyway.

You cup his face and rest your forehead on his for a moment, indulging yourself, and then you climb off him and get a cloth to clean him up.

His jaw works as you walk back to the bed empty handed and fasten the guardrail in place. “You need sleep.”

York shakes his head, his face drawn. “I need  _ you _ .”

Your heart  _ aches. _ “I shouldn’t.”

He turns those chocolate eyes on you, extends a hand. “Just stay until I fall asleep?”

In the end, you can deny him nothing. He knows it and you know it. So you skirt around the bed and lie down next to him, settling your face in the hollow of his shoulder. You think about all the reasons you can’t get involved with a man like David York, but deep down you know thinking is useless; that you were lost the moment you saw his face.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
